The Internet of Things (IoT) has been an industry buzzword for years, but sluggish development and limited commercialization have led some industry watchers to start calling it the “Internet of NoThings”. Double puns aside, IoT development is in trouble. Aside from spawning geeky jokes unfit for most social occasions, the hype did not help; and, in fact, I believe it actually caused a lot more harm than good. There are a few problems with IoT, but all the positive coverage and baseless hype are one we could do without.

In Akan dialect, Soronko means ‘different’ and the company is doing just that, standing out in providing quality services to its clients. The company sees its purpose as that of creating and managing enterprises that apply technology to promote social development. Sonkoro has developed an app for the deaf , "the signing monkey".

After realizing this opportunity I went out searching and believe it or not, 3D printers are already present in Zimbabwe, albeit on a small scale. As I write, there are some hobbyists who are doing 3D printing using PLA and ABS plastics. The printers are being used for prototyping and can be used to make once off customised products. One example shown to me was a case for a Raspberry Pi computing device

Currently Zimbabwe's average Internet speed sits at 3.05Mbps which is way below the global average of 17.9Mbps. Zimbabwe is ranked 106 in the world in-terms of Internet speed. At such speeds not much can be done in the connected world thus a lot of investment needs to be done to improve the bandwidth capacity to make sure that everyone benefits from the Internet of Everything.

Energy is one of the major challenges confronting Africa and it is likely to grow significantly in the near future. Therefore it is not an exclusive duty of politicians, industrialists and economists to tackle this problem, rather, it will take a collective effort of everyone including academics, farmers and the general publics to invent solutions.

A new form of youth empowerment is visibly growing in Zimbabwe. A lot of techpreneurship challenges and competitions have sprouted all over the country, some of which have managed to capture the attention of organizations as big as the United States of America Embassy

Considering the country’s liquidity crunch, mobile money has ushered in a new convenient way of doing business. With current mobile money services you can now send and receive money, pay for groceries in retail outlets, pay for public transport, make newspaper subscriptions, buy airtime, pay utility bills like water bills, rent, satellite TV in the absence of hard cash. Most recently EcoCash introduced EcoCash Save which allows you to save any amount of money and get zero percent interest loans after 3 months. EcoCash has also gone the extra mile by allowing companies to pay salaries through mobiles.

At only 40% penetration, Zimbabwe still has an untapped potential market of 60% of its 13 million population, yet to be connected to the Internet. This presents an opportunity to service providers to build relevant and affordable Internet packages which will enable them to reach the remaining 60% as well as to maintain the growth trend. As

From necklaces to earrings, from bracelets to anklets, Elizabeth Akonobea Appiah crafts beads into iconic and glamorous ornaments. In doing so, Elizabeth has turned her childhood love for beads into a profit-making venture right from the comfort of her home in South Suntreso, a suburb of Kumasi in the Ashanti Region of Ghana.

Ordinarily a lot of women make shito and sell it along the street side or in small shops but they are not so marketable because of their packaging and branding. Getting your own shito recognized is not an easy feat, considering that there are countless other labels screaming for attention.

Despite this huge potential, the current realities tell a different story. The availability of opportunities and distribution of wealth is still very minimal. Mostly young people are at the receiving end of all this. The African Development Bank(AfDB) estimates the unemployment rate among the youth aged 15-24 in Ghana at 25.6%, twice that of the 25-44 age group’. In the face of economic challenges coupled with the inadequate job openings for the youth and the not so viable government interventions for small scale enterprises in Ghana, many young men and women are creating their own opportunities and in the process creating job opportunities for others too.